Snow Storm
by Agent-MC-SkyeHill
Summary: An inconvenient snow storm leaves Maria stranded at Stark Tower until the snow clears, luckily her close friend Natasha is stuck with her. Or, a snow storm allows Tony and Pepper to test their match making abilities.
1. Chapter 1

**Snow Storm**

 **Chapter 1: Snow Storm**

Maria had officially given up on working in her office at the New York base. Every year, without fail, the building slowly began to erupt with chaos with the approaching holidays, causing disasters within all departments which eventually ended up with Maria marching down to sort them out.

SHIELD own personal grinch.

Which was not necessarily true, Maria enjoyed the festive season. The cold was always given a warm welcome by herself along with a small prayer of hope that maybe it would slow down the world. That the cold would ignite a deep subconscious craving to hibernate and lay off the criminal actives, just long enough that Maria could enjoy the festive season and allow her to sleep for more than five minutes.

Maria never got what she wanted.

This year, somehow, was even worse than all the previous years combined. People were bustling past her office, causing her to grind her teeth as she watched them fly by in a frosty blur. The hallway outside her office was rarely busy, as people knew better than to annoy her with their hesitance outside her door as they attempted to get approval for something ridiculous.

Something about the holiday season meant that everyone grew a backbone as they constantly rapped their knuckles against her door to bring her request up request, followed by more than necessary paperwork, that somehow she had to do?

She grumbled as she filed several pieces of paper that could have easily been filed out by the agents superior officer rather than the deputy director. She would have to hold a meeting or send out yet another mass email about what paper work was appropriate to send to the deputy director.

How come Fury never had to put up with as much bullshit as she did? Then again, he seemed to have a way to paw off his paper work onto her.

It wasn't as though she hated doing paper work, she loved it as much as the next senior agent. It was just easier knowing that the paper work for missions was done correctly; that agents were going in with the best information that they could have, along with detailed plans and that the end results were record correctly in case they needed to be used in another missions.

It was all about efficiency.

Except, this year she actually booked some time off. She wasn't really going to do much with it, just relax at home. Natasha had mentioned to her that she wasn't doing anything for Christmas this year, so maybe they could spend the day and get wrecked. Always a good plan, in Maria's mind. Then, of course, Natasha was staying at the tower nowadays, so Maria might have to put with Stark, but she supposed, at least Pepper would be there to stop him going "Full Stark".

Another rap at her door pulled her from her thoughts as she turned and glared at the door appropriately.

"Enter." She said through gritted teeth.

"Deputy Director, I have a request form for-" an agent began, but Maria had enough.

"Let me see the form." She demanded, cutting the new agent off, holding her hand out as she stared them down. The agent nervously placed the file in her hand and she scanned over it quickly.

Another file which could have been dealt with by a superior officer.

"What is the name of your superior officer?" Maria questioned the women, glancing up from the request form.

"Agent Daniel Hope" She replied, only a hint of nerves in her voice.

"Pass this to him, tell him it is easily achievable within his level" Maria instructed, passing the paper back and dismissing the women.

"But... Agent Hope said-" The women spoke back hesitantly.

Maria could feel the glare slowly appear on her face. "Let me guess, Agent Hope couldn't be bother with the paper work so near the festive seasons and sent it to the senior agent he thought was on duty for the season?"

The agent nodded, clutching the filer in her hands.

"Well, you better tell Agent Hope that I'm not here to pick up his slack and if I find another request form with him listed as the superior officer, he will be demoted as he so seems to desire." Maria spoke slowly, making sure the agent in front of her understood.

The agent nodded quickly and left even quicker, her door falling gently behind her in a quiet slam.

Maria sighed and leaned back in her chair, rubbing the sides of her forehead as she attempted to think of a way to finish her work without being distracted or obtaining more work. She tilted her head back, staring up at the celling, working out her best options. She could find a quiet room here were no one could find her; although the chances of that are very slim as people seem to obtain super powers and gain the ability to find her within the office when she does not want to be found. An alternative was that Maria could go home, but she has not yet set up a study in her new apartment and knew fine well that if she sat on her couch she would be out in an instant.

The only other place that she would be welcome to sit and do work undisturbed would be the tower. Surely Pepper would be able to prevent people from knowing that she was doing work there? Only one way to find out. She reached for her phone blindly and mumbled out a gentle "call Pepper" as she stared to pull files together, getting ready to transport them.

"Maria! Hello!" came the quiet answer of Pepper, Maria quickly hit the speaker button before responding.

"Hey Pepper, I need a place to work in quiet without anyone disturbing me. Think there is a place for me at the tower?" Maria asked, there was no point in speaking pleasantries with the CEO, the two tend to leave that for when they met in person. Phone calls were strictly business, unless something catastrophic had happened, even then there was still a business element to it.

Pepper seemed to pause for a moment, Maria could practically hear the clogs in her head turning as she thought of a location for her. "There is a small office on my floor with a single, medium-ish window, no glass walls if that is what you are after?"

"That sounds perfect Pepper, I will be making my over immediately." Maria said, sighing with relief that she was getting away from the nightmare the was currently shield.

"I'll make sure there is a gallon of coffee for you." Pepper teased.

"Better make it two." Maria joked back, gather the last of her files, "I'll see you soon, Pepper."

"Bye Maria." Pepper finished, the phone call ended as the two women went back to their work.

Maria grabbed the last of her stuff and made a swift exit. She fired off a quick text to Fury, letting him know that she would be off site for the rest of today. Technically Maria finished up for the holidays two days ago, but thought it was better to get her paper work out of way so she could enjoy her holidays, stress free.

Fury responded with the eye rolling emoji and told her to enjoy her holidays. Sometimes she was grateful that Natasha showed Fury how to use the emojis because it resulted in hilarious conversations between the two of them and playing silly games of describing an event only using emojis, but other times it as annoying, like him telling her to act more "human" and "enjoy" things more.

As if she had the time.

It wasn't long until Maria drove into the private car park for Stark's building and made her way up to Peppers floor, where the CEO greeted her with a warm smile and a tight hug.

"Long time, no see." Pepper joked with her, grabbing two cups of coffee of off an assistant that stood waiting for them and passed one to Maria.

"Are you god?" Maria mumbled as she took a deep drink. It had been exactly one and a half hours since her last cup of coffee. Sometimes she thought Natasha had hit the nail when she suggested that Maria was overly dependant on her coffee.

"No, just a powerful CEO with an amazing personality and an even better body." Pepper said, chucklingly to herself. "I would have thought, that a powerful women such as yourself, would have an assistant that brought you coffee constantly."

"Fury says I'm not allowed to misuse the agents like that and I have to get my own coffee, unless it's a 'oh shit, the world is about to end' type of situation. Which, doesn't happen very often." Maria replied, glancing out the windows and frown at the overcast look outside that had approached without her knowledge. "Looks like it might snow" she commented casually.

"There was recent news update saying that the snow storm might hit tonight rather than tomorrow." Pepper responded, looking outside as well, just in time as the first delicate snowflake gently came to a stop on one of the buildings massive windows.

Maria sighed again, "well, I better get a move on with this work before it gets too bad outside."

"Oh how horrible, you might be forced to spend one night with Tony Stark, whatever will you do?" Pepper mocked her, showing her the room which she had chosen for Maria.

Maria walked into the room before turning back to face with Pepper with a grin, "hide with Natasha the entire night. Stark is too scared of her to annoy her."

Pepper rolled her eyes at the young deputy director, a smile gracing her face as she watched the way the women's face lit up at the small thought of staying the night with Natasha. "You seem to like that idea." She said casually, gently probing the subject of Maria's obvious crush on the Black Widow. The two of them had been flirting and teasing each other all year round and were the most relaxed within each other's presence. Everyone knew they were dating except them.

Maria shrugged, "Natasha knows how to party." She said, leaving the conversation at that as she turned to face the pile of paper work that she laid on the table.

"I'll leave you to it then." Pepper said, placing her hand comfortingly on Maria's shoulder, squeezing before leaving her be.

"Yay, paper work." Maria muttered sarcastically to herself as she closed the door and settled in for a few hours of rigours paper work. She sighed once more as she glanced at the time, it wasn't even nine thirty in the morning yet.

* * *

It took more than a couple of hours but Maria was finally finished with the paper work that she had to do, and she only drank about five cups of coffees. It was impressive, even for her. Maria stretched as she glanced at the clock and winced, noticing the time of six in the evening. She had barely eaten anything past the couple of bites out pastries that she bought herself, all of them half eaten as Maria had forgot about them during her wok, too engrossed in her files to really care about trivial thing such as eating.

Maria packed all the files away in a secure, secret compartment within her bag and made he way to Pepper, to let the women know that she was done for the day and would be heading home. Maria rushed through the halls, ignoring the orange tinted light coming from the windows besides her as she attempted to hunt down her friend.

It took only a couple of minutes before Jarvis sounded above her, telling her that Pepper was upstairs, enjoying some down time with the avengers as she was officially done with work until after Christmas. Maria groaned at that, she was honestly hoping to avoid Tony, it wasn't as though he was a bad guy, its just that you had to be in the right mood to put up with his humour and antics when the mood stuck him and Maria wasn't sure she would be all that nice to him if he started anything.

Maria waited patiently as the lift took her towards her impending doom. Okay, maybe she was being a bit dramatic, but for once in her life she was actually looking forward to doing nothing, even though she knew fine well that after one day of doing nothing she would get agitated and start actively looking for trouble. Fury often called her, in an endearing way, a little shit, when she was in one of those moods.

Maria strode confidently out towards her co-workers, smiling at Pepper and Natasha, opened her mouth to let them know that she was leaving when her jaw dropped. Literally.

"Is- is that snow?" She asked incredulously, staring out at the snow that had piled up against the door to the balcony, it was at least half way up the door.

Natasha snorted from where she sat and held her hand out smugly towards Tony, "told you she wouldn't notice the snow."

Tony seemed to stare back at her, the same disbelieving look on his face, "how did you not notice the snow?" He demanded.

Maria blinked, "Honestly? I closed the blinds in the office and just finished my work. I don't think I actually left it, except to get more coffee." Maria responded, more openly than usual as she resigned herself to the fact that she would be staying hear for the next, light only knows, how many days.

At least she had some spare clothes here, in Natasha apartment.

"Hey, at least you got spare clothes in my room." Natasha said, breaking her thoughts. It seemed like an innocent statement to the others, but Maria knew better and narrowed her eyes at the assassin. Natasha looked back at her with a sweet smile. A smile, that Maria knew all to well.

They were going to cause some trouble.

"Yeah, that is really great planning on my part." Maria said, placing her bag down and joining the others on the couch.

"Most people would say that you were lucky." Steve commented from where he sat.

"No such thing as luck, Rogers. Only careful, calculated planning." Maria replied, sliding down next to Natasha and Clint.

Tony rolled his eyes at her, "of course you would think that. The greatest AI SHIELD has ever created," he mocked.

"Meaning you aren't the smartest man alive, like you claim to be?" Maria faked gasped. Maybe she was in the mood to have some banter with Stark, after all, she didn't want to be stuck in awkward silences for her duration here.

Tony grinned at her, seemingly happy that she wasn't snapping at him. Natasha squeezed her leg in appreciation as well. Maria was glad that she read Natasha's face correctly, she would need the others to not be overly suspicious of her for whatever Natasha had planned.

This was going to be a fun couple of days.

* * *

They were ending the night bunched together on the seats in one of the main viewing rooms. Tony had put on some cheesy Christmas movie for them (Steve) to watch. Maria was hardly paying attention, having watched the film several times a few years ago when she was doing a Christmas movie marathon with Natasha. The assassin had never really watched any previous to that and made it her mission to help the women get a good education of Christmas movies.

Maria and Natasha sat together on the love seat as everyone else scrambled to spread out on the couches, Maria found it weird that Tony didn't have a couch for every person that stayed in the tower in this room as the team had frequent movie nights, she shrugged it off as Tony being Tony. She didn't mind sitting this close to Natasha, that had been in much more situations that boarded uncomfortable or just downright awkward, which contributed to their close friendship. There wasn't much that the pair hadn't seen the other do.

Looking around, she noticed that no one was really paying attention to the movie except the Steve. The others had their phones out, periodically checking them and reading through whatever caught their eye. She supposed everyone had probably seen this movie a thousand times as well and were just doing this for Steve's benefit.

Natasha tapped on her shoulder and shoved her phone near Maria's face. Maria grinned as she watched videos of cats passing a single food bowl between each other. Natasha leaned against Maria's side, practically cuddling her as she continued to show Maria several photos of memes, cat videos and fail videos. Maria had to admit, she found it hard to not laugh outright at the fail videos. Did people not think before they acted?

Unknown to both the women, their team members were casting them approval looks and quickly firing texts off to each other in a group chat they had created.

Operation: Get Maria and Nat to stop being so Stupid.

Pepper: _'We should really change the name of our operation, it is very long winded.'_

Clint: _'SHIELD loves long winded operations, it just needs to have a cool acronym. Like, GMANTSBSS.'_

Tony: _'That's just stupid'_

Clint: _'yeah, now that I've typed it out. It does seem stupid.'_

Clint: _'At least they are cuddling. So far phase one has been a success.'_

Pepper: _'Do you think they noticed that we removed some of the furniture?'_

Clint: _'Maybe, but they have no reason to think there was any suspicious motive behind the action.'_

Tony: _'Good, because phase 2 is is about to start.'_

Steve: _'lets do this.'_

Pepper: _'Thought you were watching the movie?'_

Steve: _'I was but the buzzing in my pocket was distracting.'_

Clint: _'I bet it was ;) '_

Tony: _'I bet it was ;) ;) '_

Tony: _'Gdi Clint. PHASE 2 IS A GO :D '_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**

" **Never Have I Ever..."**

The sleep over games did not happen straight away, much to Tony's dismay. When he had went to gleefully yell that they were going to play some traditional sleep over games, he was greeted with the sight of Maria Hill – resident hard/ bad ass – sound asleep on the chair that she was sharing with Natasha. The deputy director had curled up into the tightest of balls, knee's pulled in against her chest and one arm curled around it protectively whilst using the other as a makeshift pillow.

Natasha grinned at them as she began taking photos of the sleeping as Tony started to complain.

"Seriously? I thought this was the women that would stay awake for five years at a time!" he grumbled, mainly annoyed at the fact that the second part of his plan was not going according to plan.

Natasha chuckled softly, mindful not to wake the sleeping women. "Let her enjoy her cat nap, Tony. This is probably the first time she has had a moments peace in a few days."

"Probably the first time she's sleep as well." Clint chimed in, as much as he wanted to help Tony get the two knuckle heads together and would do nearly anything to make their plan successful, waking up a sleeping Maria was not one of them. Clint has known Maria for such a long time that he knows better than to wake her, especially since she seemed to be constantly sleep deprived.

"Well, when can we play some games? It's not very often we are all together like this and we need some serious team bonding time." Tony said with as much seriousness as he could muster, without chuckling at his own plan.

"Tomorrow?" Steve questioned, peering over towards the windows, "the snow doesn't look as though it will clear up anytime soon. So we've probably got a couple of days stuck in here."

Everyone automatically turn to face the windows, frowns marring their faces.

"That looks like its getting worse, not better." Pepper commented, pausing to think about the stock levels within the tower. They should hold, providing it wasn't much longer than two or three weeks.

"Well, if anything, I'm with Hill right now. Tired and ready to sleep on my giant bed." Clint said, standing and stretching.

"If we're all going to bed, it means we have to wake her." Natasha warned Clint, giving him a serious looks.

Clint pulled a face at that, "Urgh, I hate waking the bear up from her nap. She always grumpy and snaps."

"Glad you guys hold me in such high regards." Maria said, her voice laced with sleep as she slowly uncurled from her self-made ball.

The team seemed to collectively wince as they realised that they woke up Maria and pissed her off within a few seconds. It must be a new record for them.

Maria rolled her eyes and waved them off, "I would've woke up in the next ten minutes or so anyways. Don't sweat."

"Maria," Pepper said suddenly, a thought forming in her head that would greatly help to their plans. "The guest floors aren't set up to receive anyone and the housekeepers have went home already, I can't exactly call them in. You'll need to share someone's floor." Pepper said apologetically, trying to conceal her giddiness at her amazingly fast thinking skills.

"Oh no." Maria started sarcastically, "Whatever will I do? I don't think I'll be able to handle sharing an apartment sized floor with anyone." Maria chuckled to herself, "It's fine Pepper, I'm just grateful I'm not being forced to sleep on the floor." She joked.

"You can stay on my floor, if you want." Natasha automatically offered her friend, happy to spend more time with Maria. She wasn't sure that she was going to see much of the brunette during the holiday season, and she was unwilling to admit that that made her somewhat sad. Somewhat.

"Great, thanks Nat." Maria said, smiling softly at her close friend, secretly glad to be spending more time with Natasha. Maybe she could bring the idea up of the two of them spending Christmas together, if she didn't have any other plans.

It didn't take long for everyone to make their way to their own respective floors, quiet 'good nights' in the elevator as the energetic mood died with every gaining level in the lift. Once at Natasha's floor, she showed Maria the room that she can stay in – the one across from hers – and with a small smile that hid many secrets, she left Maria to her own devices, lingering in the door, as if she wanted to say something. Whatever it was, she quickly left after she realised Maria was giving her a quizzical look.

Maria shrugged off the unusual behaviour from Natasha and settled down to sleep, in a stupidly comfy bed.

* * *

Steve: _"I thought the guest bedrooms were always ready? Worked out well for us tho."_

Tony: _"-eye roll-"_

Pepper: _"They are, but this is a lot more convenient for us and helps us towards our goal!"_

Clint: _"It was a genius move, now we all know why Stark industries is suddenly thriving again ;)"_

Tony: _"Pepper is a genius and I have no problem admitting it."_

Tony: _"However, I am the better matchmaker between the two of us and I will prove it."_

Pepper: _"Keep telling yourself that, Stark."_

Steve: _"That was a good move. The sleep over games should work in our favour, right?"_

Clint: " _Hill will always over share when drunk. It's just a matter of getting her drunk in the first place. She knows her limits and very rarely goes over it."_

Pepper: _"Why?"_

Clint: _"Idk, something about being responsible and being on call 24/7. Some shit like that."_

Tony: _"Well, there's no way she can be on call now with the snow storm."_

Steve: _"I don't know, Fury tends to get a hold of her no matter what from what I've seen and heard."_

Clint: _"Yeah, Hill's his right hand women, he has secretive ways to get a hold of her, there is rumours going round that he managed to get Hill to answer her phone in a conference right after she had sex. Totally had her sex voice on."_

Tony: _"Oh now she needs to get drunk and tell me everything."_

Pepper: _"I agree. I need to hear this."_

Steve: _"Well, we'll figure it out tomorrow. I'm off to sleep."_

Clint: _"Old man needs his rest."_

Steve: _"Shut up. You're physically older than me."_

Clint: _"We're going by year of birth."_

Steve: _"What about year of re-birth."_

Pepper: _"You're both old. Shut up, trying to concentrate."_

Tony: _";)"_

Clint: _"Ew."_

Steve: _"TMI."_

* * *

The next morning, Tony had JARVIS wake them all up, politely demanding that they all join him on the common floor for a delicious breakfast cooked by himself and Pepper, and as much as Maria wanted to stay sleeping in her cocoon of warmth, she was extremely curious to see what their cooking was like. Although, the only thing that was putting her off was that they had to attend in their pj's.

" _Like a real sleep over, Mr Stark said."_ JARVIS supplied, his computerised voice taking on a hint of amusement.

For most people, she supposed that would be fine, for those that slept in matching pyjamas set or those weird sleep suits. Maria slept in a tank top and boy shorts, and she didn't exactly have any other sleep wear with her, preferring not to feel restrictive in her sleep. Maybe Natasha would have some spare clothes that she could borrow.

With that thought, she shoved herself out of her bed and lazily walked across the hall to Natasha's room, trying to wake herself up with every step that she took. By this point in her life, she realised that there was no way for her to fully wake up without a cup of coffee and every time she remembered that, it made her wince. Not the best thing to be dependant on, but unless someone wanted her to pull of these ridiculous shifts that she did, they would just have to put up with it.

She had even contemplated – several times – asking Stark to build her a machine that would just brew a cup for her for when she woke up. That way she wouldn't have to move and would be awake within in seconds rather than minutes. It would really shave time of her morning routine.

"Morning sleepy head." Came Natasha's voice as she approached her friends door, Maria blinked in surprise, she wasn't even paying attention to her surroundings, that or Natasha was purposely being quiet.

"Hey yourself." She forced out, eyes widening as she saw that Natasha slept in basically the same sleep wear as herself. Which, really, was a good idea, in Maria's opinion. Not that she would ever, ever, admit that to anyone, especially Natasha.

Natasha's legs just looked too damn good.

Maria pulled her eyes from Natasha's body to her face, the respectful, adult thing to do. Not continue the horny teenage stare at her body.

"Have you literally just rolled out of bed?" Natasha asked, amused as she took in Maria's appearance.

"Why?" Maria replied slowly, automatically looking down at her body. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"I'm talking about the bird nest that is your hair, Hill." Natasha teased, turning and reaching for something at the side of her. Her hand reappeared with a brush, wiggling it for added effect.

"Would you like me to brush it, your laziness?" Natasha mocked her, her eyes challenging Maria, for some unknown reason.

Maria rolled her eyes and grabbed the brush, grumbling softly as she pulled the brush from her hair and using her fingers to try and style it into something that wasn't a birds nest.

"You really are useless before you have your coffee. How are you walking?" Natasha joked, reaching forward with her own hands and gentle moved Maria's hair into the right place.

Maria froze for a second, she really was useless before her coffee, how the hell was she meant to control her very obvious reaction to that? As Sharon had so delightfully pointed out to her, she really was a useless lesbian.

"Thanks Nat, you really know how to treat a girl." She quickly fired, "Next time you should have coffee ready for me and I'll be down on my knee in a second to propose." she teased.

Natasha snorted and rolled her eyes in amusement at their banter. "Oh honey, you'll be proposing tomorrow morning. Make sure it's a big diamond. I have expensive taste."

Maria chuckled at that, it felt good to just relax like this, having a bit of fun with her friend and not having to worry about anything. The two of them lapsed into a silence, standing in Natasha's doorway before Maria remembered her original reason for being on her end of the floor.

"Don't suppose you have any trousers or anything longer than these boy shorts?" Maria asked, guesting towards her room.

"Nope, or else I'd be wearing them. No, we should just own it, what are they going to do? Stare at us? The horror." Natasha said, joking around again as she moved forward, walking confidently past Maria toward the lift door.

Maria shrugged in response to Natasha, following her lead. It wasn't like she wasn't comfortable with what she was wearing, or she wouldn't wear it in the first place. It was just unusual for her to be this exposed in front of people she hasn't spent that much time with. She was pretty sure that none of them, minus Nat and Clint, had actually seen her out of her work clothes.

Well there was a first time for everything, she supposed as she stepped into the lift and descended towards the common floor.

* * *

Greeting everyone in a tank top and boy shorts went down about as well as Maria thought. Steve chocked on his drink, Clint laughed himself stupid and gave them an over-exaggerated wink and Pepper and Tony grinned together as Tony whistled in appreciation.

Glad to know that her assumptions about them were accurate. It was always good to know that her people reading skills were still intact.

"Morning." Maria greeted, stealing Clint's coffee, sighing happily into the cup and letting herself rest on a chair near his, leaving a space for Natasha to sit with her closest friend.

"Hey, get your own coffee." Clint grumbled, reaching for his cup, but Maria pulled it out of his reach. It was her coffee now.

"Here, you grouch." Natasha said softly, pushing a cup in front of Maria and skilfully plucking the one out of her hands to pass back to Clint.

"Thanks" Maria replying, happy to have a full mug. It didn't take a lot nowadays to make her happy, apparently.

"Well that was something." Steve commented casually, looking at Maria.

Maria raised an eyebrow at him over the rim of her mug. She was allowed to be carefree, it was the only time of year that she really allowed herself to relax. Not due to the holidays, but due to the fact that a lot of SHIELD staff took the holidays off, leaving Maria in peace to deal with missions and paper work efficiently and quickly.

Okay, maybe it had a little bit to do with the holidays.

"Maria's not fully awake yet, just wait. She'll turn into the hard ass that we all know and love." Clint teased her form his seat, helping himself to the food that has appeared on the table.

"Natasha, punch him for me." Maria asked, not really looking at Clint as she said that.

Natasha wordless punched Clint in the arm, not looking at him either, instead focusing on the same thing that Maria was, which was watching Pepper and Tony cook. It wasn't often that they all had a moment like this together, where they could relax and enjoy themselves and each others company.

Before they had all moved into the tower, Pepper and Tony had someone cook all their meals for them, which they could quickly eat as they moved from project to project. Steve had been the first one to move in and insisted on cooking his own meals whilst staying here with little to do. It ended up forcing the two to slow down a little in their days to make time for Steve's home cooked meals, making a point to at least sit down for one meal together once a day.

It continued on as everyone else moved in and Clint was the only other person with any reasonable cooking skills, so Steve and Clint took turns cooking and the others cleaned up, it was a good balance, until they all started getting busy again and the cooks ended up back making the majority of their meals for them.

So it was nice to see Tony and Pepper teasing each other as they cooked, being the perfect movie couple as they tried to mess up the others appearance, playful hits and putting food on each others face – or dramatically putting ice cubes down Tony's back apparently.

It was a nice break from the horrors of the world, seeing her some-what friends relax like this.

Eventually the two managed to put the rest of the food on the table and joined the team.

"So, we are so playing those sleep over games tonight." Tony announced in a way that it was clear that no was not an option.

"Do we have to?" Steve asked, putting on a frown for extra convincing, as per Tony and Peppers instructions this morning.

They were currently in pre-phase 2; get the girls to agree to play the games during breakfast.

"Yes! It's great bonding experience. You're all about team bonding, aren't you, Hill? Wouldn't you like to be on first name basis with us?" Tony asked, putting a little bit too much enthusiasm into his approach.

Maria raised her eyebrow again, "I'm not technically apart of the Avengers" she shrugged in response. "And I'm on first name basis with everyone that I need to be, Stark." She said, throwing a little bit of shade at Tony. The small smile on her face let them all know that she was simply joking around with them.

"I'm hurt." Tony grumbled, but then perked up at another idea to get Maria to play. "If you play, I'll let you choose any two bottles from my booze collection."

Maria perked up at this. "Any two?" She asked for confirmation,

"Any two." Tony confirmed

"Alright, I'm in." Maria said sitting back happily against her chair at this small win.

"Do any of us get an incentive to play?" Clint asked, pretending to be offended.

"I got Maria to play." Tony said with a shrug. "There's your incentive."

"You know, I might just call you my friend one day, Tony." Maria said, putting a little emphasis on his name.

Natasha rolled her eyes at their behaviour, "well I'm in, always wanted to do these stupid American sleep overs."

Clint grinned as he looked at Natasha, "at least that will be one thing to get off your bucket list!"

"Sleep over games are on your bucket list?" Pepper asked curiously,

Natasha just shrugged, "child assassin here people. Do you really think I got to do any of this?"

"Good point." Pepper said with a frown, "guess we will just have to make it fantastic."

"Okay, so when exactly do we need to be present for sleep over stuff?" Steve asked.

"6pm tonight, we will start with the traditional stuff, then we will hit the alcohol so hard it won't even see us coming." Tony planned.

They all made some noise of agreement before digging into their food, talking about the other plans they had for the day after splitting up after breakfast.

* * *

Maria spent the whole day on the phone with someone at SHIELD, either fixing their mistakes or talking someone through a mission plan of hers and describing her back up plans for back up plans that were not written down yet.

Fury sucks.

She couldn't think of anything more creative than that, those phone calls tend to drain the creativeness out of you, as well as sap your energy. Maria often wondered how she managed to put up with these people, she had almost collapsed in relief when someone sensibly put Victoria Hand on the phone. Finally, it had been someone who easily understood the way that Maria thought and was able to get on the train and think for herself in case any of the plans fall through.

Hand also had enough of a backbone that she could deal with Fury and the WSC whilst she wasn't there, and knew mostly what Maria would say to them.

Maria would happily marry Victoria if she ever asked, it was nice to be on the same wavelength as someone else. There were other people that were able to flow with Maria and manage her plans on their own and had the ability to come up with back up plans as well; Coulson was one, as well as Bobbi and Natasha to name a few. Clint would be able to come up with back up plans for a two-man team, that was part of his speciality. Maria tended to let Clint dictate his missions and create missions plans which she would just generally approve of as they seemed like the best approach. Of course, she still made plans for his missions. Just in case.

Maria groaned as she moved from her currently location of lying upside down in a chair in the guest room, she had been hoping that all the blood rushing to her head would just knock her out or something to the same effect, but alas, it did not. Just messed up hair and a stiff body.

She glanced at the time again, hoping that it really wasn't time to go down and bond with the Avengers, unfortunately, it was. At least she was going to get some expensive booze out of it, Stark was quickly learning the way to her heart. Coffee and booze. Maria lazily made her way down the lift and towards the common area. Everyone else was already there, having claimed seats for themselves already on the floor, leaving Maria to sit next to Natasha.

This would make this evening a lot more bearable.

"About time!" Tony complained, looking excited to start the night. "What kept you so long?"

"Work." Maria replied simply, not caring to elaborate further.

Tony rolled his eyes at the answer Maria gave him, but seemed to shrug it of as he reached behind him and pulled shot glassed out, followed by a bottle of tequila.

"I thought this would put us in the mood." Tony said, grinning at them and started passing the shot glasses out.

"Are we just gonna take shots in silence or are we going to have fun with this?" Natasha asked, taking her glass as she looked at Tony,

"It's like you don't know me at all." Tony grumbled, "of course we are going to play some silly drinking game, Pepper suggested 'never have I ever.' Any disagreements?" he asked them, getting shrugs of agreement from the rest. "Lets do it, Clint you're up first."

Clint leaned forward in thought as he filled up the shot glasses near him. "Let's see, never have I ever pranked someone whilst they were sleeping." he finished, grinning as he looked very pointedly at Maria.

Maria tried to look innocent as she flung back the shot with a grimace at the initial taste, "God, I love tequila."

Natasha calmly followed her with taking a shot, the two of them had worked together after all.

"You've never pranked someone whilst sleeping, Clint?" Steve asked, looking surprised.

Clint shrugged in response, "I never done it, I might have set one up whilst they were sleeping but never done the stuff of like putting whip cream on someone's face or drawing on it. What Maria and Natasha did was just cruel and unjust."

"You deserved it." Natasha commented, smiling at Maria's continued attempt to appear nonchalant about the situation.

"He really did." Maria continued to be vague about the situation, neither women seemed to want to give up any information on, but the smirks that slowly appeared on their faces and the grouchy look on Clint's, they knew it was good one.

"You have to share now!" Tony grumbled, giving them the stink eye.

"Not drunk enough to share that story." Maria said, reaching for the tequila to refill her glass.

"Nowhere near the level of intoxicated to share that one, I don't even think Clint will either." Natasha teased.

"We'll get it out eventually." Pepper promised suddenly, a glint in her eye showing the side of the CEO that not many people saw.

"We'll see." Maria replied airily, but shot Pepper a smile, a quiet promise that she will share with the women at a later time.

"Whatever, next one!" Tony announced, raises his glass. "Alright, my turn... let's see, never have I eve-"

"What haven't you done? We might be here a while." Maria interrupted, a small smirk on her face, as Natasha gave a cough out in an attempt to cover up her snort of laughter.

"I haven't done stuff!" Tony protested.

"Like what? Never have you been sober for more than a week?" Came a teasing voice from the side.

Maria looked around in surprise, "Sharon!" she exclaimed happily, glad to have another one of her friends here to make the night that little bit more fun.

"That's just mean, Shar." Tony pouted.

"And you're a grown man pouting at his little cousin." Sharon teased back, shrugging out of her jacket and shows which were covered in snow. " I hope you don't mind me dropping by, but couldn't get my car started and your place was closer than mine."

"Of course! You're always welcome here, Sharon." Pepper responded kindly.

"Great, so next question, why are you guys playing drinking games?" She questioned as she sat down on Maria's other side, stealing her shot.

"Tony wants us to bond." Maria dead panned, looking at her friend with humour in her eyes.

"Oh, I see. Well, I can get down with that." Sharon responded and not so subtly looked over Steve.

Tony scrunched up his face, "no stop that."

"Stop what?" Sharon replied innocently, grabbing a spare shot glass so Maria could have hers back.

Tony narrowed his eyes at her, "anyway. As I was saying, never have I ever thrown up during sex." he finished proudly.

"Yes you have." Pepper said automatically, staring him down, "do you not remember? That girl about six years ago now?"

"There has been many girls Pepper," Tony complained, "How am I meant to keep track of them all? I only need to keep track of you, and you are a handful!" he finished.

Pepper rolled her eyes and pushed his shot in her face. "Drink."

"Fine." Tony grumbled, taking his shot.

The game continued in the same manner for several hours, lasting a lot longer than any of them were expecting but after the first ten shots or so, most people were already passed the sensible amount of intoxication and were constantly getting into competition with each other about who can share the most embarrassing thing about their friend.

Sharon thought it would be hilarious to share the fact that her and Maria had a casual thing going on and about how one time Maria had fallen asleep during sex.

"Did you have to mention that?" Maria had whined, burying her head against Natasha's arm, trying to hide away from her shame.

Everyone was laughing as Sharon explained herself. "Oh Maria, it's just too funny not to share, if it had been the other way around, I would have been offended."

Tony had not taken the news so well and had been over-dramatic to find out his little cousin has casual sex with the deputy director of SHIELD.

"Okay, okay, my turn," Pepper giggled, swaying slightly, the glint back in her eyes. "Never have I ever had a crush on someone I worked with!"

"You're with Tony!" Sharon shouted, her hand flinging itself forward to point accusingly at the women.

Pepper attempted to hold a straight face before bursting out laughing, but surprisingly enough, everyone took a shot. That had been a first for the night.

Steve, who wasn't nowhere near as drunk as the rest, looked at them, deciding it was upon himself to further their cause in getting Maria and Natasha to admit that they like each other.

"The deputy director has a crush on someone she works with!" He mocked, letting out a gasp in shock.

"Shut... up Rogers, I know you aren't as wrecked as the rest of us." Maria slurred slightly, past the point of return.

"Who?" he asked simply, being straight forward and blunt with Maria had tended to work tonight during these games and got the women talking; that or she just loved to over-share at random moments.

"Shhhhhh, can't tell! It's a secret but she's pretty!" Maria staged whispered, eyes widening as she grinned at Sharon.

Sharon rolled her eyes "Don't let that fool you Rogers, it isn't me. I know fine well who Maria has a crush on. She cries her name out whe-"

Maria launched herself at Sharon, knocking her down and shoving her hand over Sharon's mouth, "don't you dare!" she threatened.

"Or what?" Sharon playful replied, shoving Maria's hand away from her mouth.

"Or...or I'll tell them about everything you've told me about Dougie. Every fantasy and sexual desire." Maria said with clarity, a grin making its way onto her face as she mentioned the made up name for Rogers so that they could discuss it at any point without anyone realising who they were talking about.

Sharon eyes widen at this, as she realised that, even though she had a lot of dirt on Maria, Maria knew a lot more embarrassing things about her that she could share at any moment.

"I'll be quiet." Sharon promised.

"Good girl." Maria said, climbing back off her and back to her previous position, leaning against Natasha for support in her attempts to stay sitting upright.

"Wow, you almost sounded like a top there." Sharon teased, pushing herself back up. Maria just rolled her eyes at her friend and pointedly ignored her.

"Natasha drank as well, who've you got a crush on in work?" Maria asked, genuinely curious about who the hell had caught Natasha's attention. She knew fine well it was not Steve or Clint, Natasha saw them as annoying brothers. They have already had a similar conversation.

"You." Natasha said, taking on a joking voice as she looked down at the women lying against her arm.

Maria, far too drunk to realise the forced joking tone, gave a snort. "Sweet, think you might need some brain readjustments though."

"Brain readjustments?" Clint questioned, giggling to himself at Maria's lack of vocabulary.

"Shut up. Who have you got a crush on?" Maria demanded, moving on from the conversation.

It left Natasha feeling slightly disappointed, that Maria easily pushed the idea away of Natasha having a crush on her. Like it was a prank someone was playing on her, when it could be further from the truth. She rested her head on top of Maria's as she attempted to grill Clint on who he liked within SHIELD.

"Who says I still have a crush on this person? It could be in the past! Pepper didn't specify when." Clint protested.

"Still meant you had a crush on someone! Did you have a crush on Steve?" Maria accused him, apparently beyond all rational thinking.

"Yes, I the amazing Hawkeye, had a crush on Captain America." Clint said sarcastically.

"Knew it." Maria said, sinking back against Natasha, seemingly happy with that answer.

"I think we're fucked." Tony announced, moving himself so he could lie against Pepper, wrapping his arms firmly around her waist. "We should have sex." He mumbled drunkly.

"Too drunk. It would suck." Pepper deflected easily, swatting his wandering hands.

Steve glanced at the time and winced when he saw it was well into the early hours of the morning. It seemed like it was left to him to take the drunken adults upstairs and to bed.

He figured he had better luck trying to get to Asgard on his own.

Natasha caught his eye and raised an eyebrow at him and mouth "bed?" and titled her head to the remainder of their group, babbling away to each other like toddlers. Steve nodded in response and pushed himself to his feet.

"Alright, bed time." Steve announced to them and grabbed Tony, pulling him to his feet. He figured Tony would be the hardest to convince to end their night after only playing the one game, but if he got Tony to comply, the rest would follow. Hopefully.

He looked over at Natasha and his eyes widened in surprise to see that she already had Clint and Maria standing, holding onto their arms.

"Good luck, Cap. Pepper can be as bad as Tony." Natasha said, shrugging at him.

"How are you not drunk?" He questioned her, his disbelief taking over as he watched he steady her two friends.

"Oh I am, but these two are so much worse off that it make me look sober as fuck. Later Cap." She replied, no longer in the mood to stand around and chat. She guided her friends towards the lift to get them ready for the sleeping.

It didn't take long to get Clint settled, in fact, he pushed himself away from Natasha as soon as she entered his room, stumbling as he pulled off his clothes and shoes, leaving himself in only his boxers. Then he decided to just belly flop onto his bed and feel asleep where he landed. Natasha had shook her head and gently moved his head to lie on its side rather than face down. Just in case he decided to be sick in his sleep.

Maria however, Maria was much more difficult. She refused to move her legs, whining at Natasha that Tony never let her chose her bottle of booze yet and how they should go back downstairs so she can grab some and continue drinking. The worst part was that she was tempted to go with Maria's plan, to push the women a little bit further on who it was the women had a crush on. She was curious to know, but she knew that it was not the best thing for their friendship if Natasha done that.

So Natasha continue her struggle to get Maria to sleep in a bed. It ended up being that Maria pulled them into her room and flopped down on Natasha's bed, pulling the redhead with her.

"We should just share a bed. Saves mess. Saves environment." Maria mumbled into a pillow.

"How does it save the environment?" Natasha questioned, pulling off Maria's shoes, decided to give up on the battle of getting her into her own bed.

"Less...less usage of electricity? Less waste?" Maria questioned, lifting her head slightly to look at Natasha.

Natasha shrugged, too tired and drunk to really care about Maria's drunken reasons. At this point all she wanted to do was sleep and Maria would be next to her, so in Natasha's book, this was win. She lay down next to Maria and watched as the women smiled sleepily at her.

"I think... I think am going to have a bitch of a hangover tomorrow." Maria concluded, her eyes shutting.

Natasha chuckled quietly, "yeah, I think everyone will." she responded quietly, pulling the covers over the two of them.

"Mhm. Night Nat." Maria mumbled, falling asleep instantly.

Natasha rolled her eyes fondly at her and couldn't help but think drunken Maria was just adorable. Natasha still wished Maria had taken her seriously about admitting that she had a crush on the women. It was a gamble, but it was also a bonus that Maria didn't seem disgusted by the idea of being with her, but rather seemed to think it was herself that was the problem.

It was weird and Natasha needed to fix it, but it would have to be a problem tomorrow because she wasn't even sure if she could reload a gun at this precise moment, never mind get Maria to realise what an amazing person she is.

She'll have to do something, maybe just kiss her and see what happens, that would certainly be bold and forward, but Maria enjoyed that in a person. It as just too complicated for night time thoughts, Natasha concluded. Deciding to sleep on the matter and deal with it tomorrow, as she drifted gently into a sleep, ignoring the fact that Maria's arm had snaked its way around her waist.


	3. Chapter 3

**Seven Days of Snow**

 **Chapter 3**

The next morning found Natasha in an awkward position. Maria was pressed against her back, curling around her with her head burrowed against her neck. Natasha has woken up before Maria and knew that if she move, the deputy would wake up instantly. It could be an awkward situation to deal with or maybe Natasha should just take the lead and joke around about being close friends. She really did not need Maria freaking out this early in the morning, especially with the headache that was building.

Although, if she felt this bad, Maria would feel ten times worse and hopefully wouldn't care about the position they ended up in. Natasha wish she wouldn't have to pretend that it was something that she did not like, because if she were really honest with herself, it felt amazing to lie in bed with Maria like this, she just hope it would not come across as creepy when she spoke to Clint about this later one.

The archer knew that she was "crushing" on someone – oh how much she hated that term – but did not know who, although she was pretty confident that Clint had an inkling about who it was. He would have to think she was stupid to not notice the looks that he shares with Pepper and Tony. She had been ignoring, thinking that they were just being weird, but after last night with Pepper's subtle looks and Steve pressing about personal life, it was clear that the group was up to something and neither she nor Maria were included. Natasha was not that bothered, if it was something important, Clint would let her know. She trusted him to not be deceiving in a malicious way.

A quiet ping came form her phone causing her to wince as she felt Maria twitch against her back and she debated about pretending to just have woken up or to still be asleep. Probably just woken up, if something woke Maria up, it would be suspicious if she had not woken up as well. She twisted a little, loosening Maria's grip on her waist and grabbed her phone to see who sent her a message.

Steve sent : _"Morning, I'm making breakfast if you want some. Common area."_

Steve Rogers was a God send, Natasha was convinced. The all American machine was doing a great duty by helping the hero's of New York with their hangovers by making food for them. Natasha lowered herself back onto the bed and turn to face Maria to see if she was awake or not.

Maria, apparently, was wide awake as she was staring at her with stunned eyes.

"You okay, Hill?" Natasha asked smiling at her friend, hoping to keep everything light and breezy, no freak outs are needed.

"I'm hugging you." Maria stated.

"You are. You're doing a great job as well, I feel very safe and loved." Natasha teased her.

Maria rolled her eyes at that but smiled, so that was a win. No panicking from either of them. Good start to the morning, god how she wished she could wake up this way every morning.

"Steve's making breakfast, if you want to end our morning cuddle and get some food, or we can stay in bed and continue to enjoy the hug." Natasha teased, winking at Maria and wrapping her own arms around the women, pulling her closer. Natasha was please to hear Maria's breath hitch a little as she pulled her closer.

It wasn't the first time that they had flirted like this before. They have done this hundreds of times, passing comments about undercover clothes or being undercover as close friends and on one memorable mission; a couple. The gentle brushing of fingers against each other as they pass in the hallways, between meetings and briefs. The way, when unable to spread out, the two would automatically gravitate towards each other and have no problem sharing personal space. It has been like that for years now.

Yet, every time Natasha thought Maria might be interested there was always something in the way. It took her a while to realise that Maria did in fact like other girls and not men. Then it seemed like she was dating someone as she had this "I totally got laid last night" face on that only a few higher ups noticed, whispers following, wondering who was able to get into bed with the uptight deputy director. Natasha had wondered along with them, the only person that Maria had really spent any noticeable time with was Sharon, which is how Natasha realised they were just fuck buddies, realised maybe was not the right word, she had just taken a leap and asked Maria about and she surprised her by laughing and just came out with saying that they had an arrangement.

If neither of them were seeing anyone exclusively and they fancied it, they would hookup, which was easy for them as Natasha also found out that the two of them shared an impressive apartment. It explained how Maria was able to afford such a place, it was a nice top floor apartment in the middle of Manhattan. It always seemed a little out of her price range.

Sometimes the flirting would build up so much that Natasha would convince herself to say something to Maria the next day and just ask the women out, she if she was interested in Natasha. But something always got in the way when that happened, a mission that would throw Natasha off balance and was left confused about her feelings about herself and others for weeks afterwards. There was also that one rare incident where a mission had messed with Maria so much that she had to take medical leave for a month before Fury felt comfortable allowing her back at work. It had been a long month, Fury had told everyone to leave Maria alone, to let her process everything without any complication.

The way his eyes landed on Natasha as he said that, they held the firmness of his order as well sympathy, as though he knew how Natasha felt about Maria. How the feelings that came with being unable to help Maria, as she had helped her so many times, was confusing her and it wouldn't be good to go to Maria with this confusion.

Natasha wondered if she would build up the courage to say anything to Maria whilst they were all stuck together during this snow storm. She was not sure if she was excited for the possibility or not. Natasha would simply have to play the situation by ear.

"Breakfast or continue hugging the black widow." Maria weighed in playful. "Hmmm...as amazing as you are, I really want something to eat."

"Well I can certainly provide something for you to eat." Natasha said, lowering her voice, her hand smoothed across Maria's side. She watched in amusement as Maria seemed to forget how to breath as she stared at her stunned, but quickly recovering with a laugh.

"As delightful as that sounds, I don't think that would provide me with enough energy." Maria chuckled, placing her hand on top of Natasha's to make it stop wandering.

"What? I was talking about making pancakes. That would provide you with energy." Natasha said innocently, a smile taking place on her face again.

"Sure you were." Maria dragged out, chuckling as she pulled out of the embrace and got to her feet. "I'm starving and relatively hung over so lets go before I kill someone." Maria said, grabbing some of Natasha's clothes to put on.

"Friends help friends get laid!" Natasha said to her jokingly as Maria went to put something more decent on.

"I know, that's why I fuck Sharon every now and then." Maria replied cheekily with a wink as she left Natasha sitting on her bed, slightly shocked that Maria was going along with the jokes this morning.

Maria must still be drunk.

MH-NR-MH-NR

The rest of their morning went by rather uneventfully. They were all present at breakfast as Steve looked smugly at them all as he fed them and they all had to refrain from wiping it off his face, because well, he was feeding them and he had the power to stop that at any moment. So they dealt with the smug looks as they ate their delicious breakfast together , only creating a quiet murmur of conversation as they tried to piece together what actually was said last night.

Eventually they had went their own separate ways, unsurprisingly Maria got a work call and the loud 'fuck you' followed by the professional 'Hill speaking' caused the rest of them great amusement.

It also meant that Natasha was left to her own devices, she wasn't really in the mood for training this morning, still feeling a little fragile from last night. She wandered around, looking for stuff to do, but found herself coming back to Maria over and over to see if she was done with her phone call. After a couple of hours, Maria found Natasha as she was making her way to where Maria was.

"Hey." Maria said tiredly, smiling at Natasha. Something which she caught herself doing over and over again recently, as if there was not enough smiles in the world that she could give the women.

"Hey yourself, hows is SHIELD? Is it still standing?" Natasha joked, mirroring Maria's facial expression.

Maria rolled her eyes as she walked passed Natasha, towards the lift to take her to the common living area. "So far it is still standing, but some personal might need reviewing on their abilities and what they can and can not handle. I also need a drink, so I am away to collect my prize from Tony." Maria said, pressing the correct button as Natasha followed her into the lift.

"Ooooh, nothing is more scary to low level agents than the deputy director doing investigations into their abilities. People are going to be scared shitless. I can't wait." Natasha cackled.

It wasn't the first time the Maria did a complete up-haul of the agents and where the skill set lay exactly. Generally people ended up, miraculously, able to do their jobs properly and stop delegating paperwork that should have never been delegated in the first place. It was funny to watch as people thought that the work they were doing currently is what Maria was judging on, when in reality Maria was looking into the past as well as what they were doing, she then tore them to shreds and put them though training again or put them on an official warning.

Fury found it hilarious as well, and Natasha found herself spending more time with the man when Maria was on one of her rampages. They also hid together when Maria became too cranky from the work load that she was taking on.

"Good. If they are scared shitless it means they aren't doing their job correctly or to the best of their ability." Maria said evenly, she was always fair in these evaluations, always looking to see if there was any reason, personal or not, for areas where agents were no longer preforming well in. She also understood that a lot of these of her agents handled massive amounts of stress on a daily basis and she did not really want to stress her agents out no more than they needed to be.

"It's so hot when you go on your evaluations rampage." Natasha teased, fanning herself.

"I'm always hot." Maria said as she walked out the lift with a smirk, "I don't work out for nothing, Natasha."

"Damn right." Natasha commented, leaking her eyes run over Maria's body and gave an appreciative hum, "why do you think I like to walk behind you?" Natasha continued, switching her tone to come across as flirting rather than teasing, hoping Maria would pick up on it.

"Why do you think I like to spar with you?" Maria teased her, turning to face Natasha.

"Maria!" Natasha faked gasp "You only like sparing with me for my body?" she asked in mock outrage.

"Damn right I do." Maria continue, grinning widely.

"I'm disappointed in both of us. I expected at least one of us not to objectify each other." Natasha said, tutting.

"Oh on, what are you going to do? Spank me?" Maria flirted, pushing the boundaries of their teasing.

Natasha's eyes darkened at that comment, "oh, sweet, naïve, Maria. I would do so much more than spank you." Natasha purred.

"Hey guys!" Clint said, jogging over to them with a splitting grin on his face.

Both Maria and Natasha quickly retreated back to their normal facade, quickly glancing at each other questioningly, confused as to where exactly that led to. Both wondering if the other women was taking it as teasing or a hopeful promise.

"So, how's SHIELD?" Clint asked, flinging his arm around her shoulders.

Maria snorted "That was the first thing Natasha asked me, its doing fine, still standing somehow."

"Maria is going to do evaluations when she gets back." Natasha informed him.

If it were possible, Clint's grin grew bigger. "I love it when you do those evaluations, everyone shits themselves."

"That is also what Natasha said." Maria replied, rolling her eyes at how similar the assassins were.

"MISTLETOE." Tony yelled suddenly as her appeared, half in his armour hovering over them.

All three spies looked up at him, Natasha and Maria held an amused look whereas Clint was giving him the death stare.

Tony continued to smile until he realised his mistake. He put the mistletoe above Clint and Maria rather than Natasha and Maria. ' _The others are going to shot me._ ' He thought with a wince, he was going to kick himself if he were honest because now he had to keep this up until everyone had kissed someone, or everyone had kissed someone multiple times.

"Well, I'm not one to break tradition." Maria said cheerily as she noticed the look of horror appear on Clint's face.

"Wait, seriously?" He asked her, shocked that she would participate in the first place, they had taken a total gamble about whether or not Maria and Natasha would actually stick to tradition.

"Yup." Maria said, popping the 'p' and pulled him close and place a soft kiss on his lips. "See? Not bad. You didn't die." Maria teased him, pushing him away from her slightly.

"C'mon Hill, that was barely a kiss." Tony goaded them, pushing now so it wouldn't seem weird when he did it later when he got Natasha and Maria under one.

"Nah. If it was Pepper or Natasha then maybe. A hundred percent if it is Sharon. Sorry Clint, you're just not my type." Maria said, shrugging unapologetically.

"You'd kiss me regardless, Hill!" Sharon called from where she sat, watching something on her phone.

"Damn right." Maria replied, turning back to the current conversation.

Clint just shrugged back at her, not particular bothered that he wasn't her type. If she had said that Natasha wasn't her type, well, that would be a much different story. It was a good start that Maria is open to making out with Natasha, it should hopefully make their plans go a lot easier.

Maria just chuckled and moved over to the windows, peering out at the city below them. The snow was not clearing up at all and seemed to be getting worse. Maria frown at the fact that it seemed darker than usual, her eyes scanned across their view of the buildings and noticed that the buildings in the distance had no lights on. None at all, not even the street lights.

"Is there blackouts happening in the city?" Maria questioned, turning back to face everyone else, the frown still on her face. Blackouts could cause a lot of issues, especially at SHIELD. She knew that they had backup generators, but they tend to be unreliable as they were currently kept in the science division so they could fix it on a whims notice, but instead they seem to break it constantly with the experiments that they do. They still haven't got around to moving them.

"Shit." Tony cursed, moving swiftly with the others to the windows, just in time to watch another block lose power. "Shit. Shit. Shit." Tony continued, quickly moving around the room.

"Oh shit." Pepper mimicked, her eyes widening as she had the same realisation as Tony, whatever that was.

"What's wrong?" Steve asked, looking at them in concern, it wasn't very often that you heard Pepper swear.

"Normally, this would not be a problem as the tower is self-sufficient when it comes to electricity-" Tony started.

"But we've had an incident where the cable we lay were damaged so we've went back to the main grid for the last week or so until we get it fixed." Pepper continued, walking over to Tony and took control of the tablet that he held in his hand, leaving him to look over her shoulder and watch what she was doing.

"So what you're saying is that we could experience a blackout at any...minute" Sharon stated, trailing off as the tower went dark.

"Damn it Clint, you jinxed us." Natasha complained, her eyes scanning over the room instinctively to make sure it was just a blackout.

"We have back up generators, but it is literally just providing power to the personal floors and then it will turn off floor by floor until its just the common living area left powered." Pepper told them as she activated the back up generators and the lights flickered back on.

"So how long can the generators last for?" Maria enquired, looking around the tower, it wasn't exactly your standard house, it used up a lot of electricity.

"We designed these, should they should sustain the tower for at least a week. We're not exactly sure yet, they are new and we haven't had the chance to test them." Tony said, taking the tablet from Peppers hand, placing a distracted kiss on her cheek as he passed her, seemingly checking what was going on with the generators.

"Should we set up camp in here then for tonight?" Steve asked, thinking logically that it was better to be prepared for the worst.

"Nah." Sharon said, shutting his idea down with a quick flicker of her eyes between Natasha and Maria. "No need, we should see what the reports are saying and if they have any indication how long this will last for. I mean, for all we know the power could be back up again within the next couple of hours." She finished, switching the TV on and turning it to the news to get some updates on the situation.

There was a quiet, comfortable moment when everyone just watched the news. That was until Sharon decided to be a little shit, according to Maria. Sharon looked over and Maria and Natasha and saw that the two were conveniently leaning against the wall, under the small balcony in the common area, perfect place to throw a mistletoe above their heads, with no mistakes who it was meant for.

It might mean that Maria would realise what they were all up to, although Sharon was confident that she could convince her friend that it was only her involved in this incident.

She grabbed one of Clint's arrows that had a mistletoe attached to it, he gave one to everyone for this phase just in case anyone saw the perfect opportunity to just fling one and well if this wasn't a perfect opportunity, then Sharon did not know what would be. Thankfully, Clint had designed them that they could just be flung – with enough force – and they would stick to where the needed to.

Sharon sat forward, grinning as she caught Clint's eye, and flung it with as much force as she could muster above their heads. Silently cheering when it hit it's mark. Of course, it did not go unnoticed by either Maria or Natasha. Both women turned to look at it before looking at Sharon, Natasha seemed confused, although Maria looked downright murderous and was giving her the stink eye.

"Oh no." Sharon said, with fake horror, "a mistletoe! You can't break tradition guys."

Maria stared her down and Sharon knew she would pay for this one way or another, she just hoped her best friend would be calm about it after she realised that Sharon's attempts to get her the girl of her dreams worked.

"Yeah Maria, time to fulfil your promise." Tony teased them.

Maria rolled her eyes, "I didn't promise that I would make out with Natasha if we were caught under a mistletoe."

"So, what, you don't want to make out with me?" Natasha asked, making an over-fake pout at Maria's reluctance to kiss her.

"N-no that's not what I meant, I just-" Maria stammered, a blush creeping slowly up her neck.

Natasha raised an eyebrow, daring Maria to finish her sentence, but Maria just kept stumbling over her words. She felt like such a teenager, like when she first realised she liked girls and her first clumsy kiss that went along with it. Why was that running through her head right now? It was making everything all the more difficult.

Then, they all plunged into darkness once more and Maria had never been more grateful. A sigh of relief escaped her lips now that not everyone was focused on her kissing Natasha. Maria could still feel Natasha eyes on her and looked back up to meet her eyes, staring at her intensely. It was now or never. There was no pressure, no one was watching them, they were all too busy trying to figure out what the problem was with the generator.

With all the courage someone could muster before they decided to kiss a deadly assassin in the dark, unsure of how the other women actually felt about being kissed by her boss, Maria surged forward and pressed her lips tightly against Natasha, a peck really.

Natasha pulled back slightly, her body shaking as she leaned towards Maria's ear. "You're ridiculous, Maria. That's not how you kiss someone." she mumbled softly, pulling Maria towards her, wrapping her arms around Maria's waist.

Maria's heart was pounded in her chest as Natasha pulled her closer and closer until their lips touched again, no hesitancy between the two as Natasha took the lead, pushing her lips more firmly against Maria's moving them slowly allowing Maria to calm down a little and actually enjoy the kiss.

Maria gasp slightly and wrapped her arms around Natasha neck, pressing herself against the women and kissing her back more firmly and with a lot more enthusiastically, encouraging Natasha to keep going. Maria had never been more grateful in her life for blackouts and mistletoe's. This was perfection, like she was flying without restrictions. She wanted this feeling to last a thousand lifetimes, to never end. Maria tried to convey, through the kiss how much Natasha meant to her, and how much she was enjoying this. She could only hope that Natasha felt the same.

Natasha squeezed Maria's waist, slowly moving one hand up over her back and back down, skimming the top of her ass. Of course Natasha would do that, but it did spark a bit of hope within Maria that she wasn't just being the teasing friend and actually meant her actions.

Natasha pulled her head back, breaking the kiss off so the two of them could gather their breath. She chuckled and leaned her forehead against Maria's, breathing heavily. "That was good, for a mistletoe kiss." Natasha joked softly.

Maria chuckled awkwardly, feeling the blush return the base of her neck as the moment was cut abruptly by Natasha statement. Of course, that's all it was, a mistletoe kiss. Something friends did joking around this time of year. "Yeah, good for a silly mistletoe kiss." She agreed bitterly, not sure what else to say.

Both women slowly pulled apart as they realised that they were still holding onto each other and Maria coughed awkwardly as she realised that the lights had just turned back on. She looked over at the others and saw that they were all huddled around the tablet in Tony's hands, everyone except from Sharon.

Sharon was staring at the two of them with uncertainty in her eyes as she took in Maria's expression and Sharon briefly wondered if she took things too far. She gave her friend a concerned look but Maria just looked away from her and moved away from Natasha. She'll have to speak to Maria later to find out what happened during the couple minutes of darkness.

"I think I'm going to lie down for a bit." Maria announced, not really looking at anyone as she walked to the lift.

"Are you okay?" Pepper asked, concerned at the sudden withdrawal from Maria.

"Yeah, just the migraine and hang over finally caught up with me." Maria joked, steeping into the lift.

"Maria..." Natasha said softly, looking conflicted, before darting toward the lift, jumping in at the last second as the closed shut, taking them to Natasha's floor,

"What just happened?" Clint asked, confused at the weird display of behaviour from his friends.

"I think, we might have pushed things a little too far. Maybe they just aren't ready to confront their feelings for each other." Sharon told them, tearing her eyes from the lift to look at her confused friends.

"Well shit." Tony grumbled, running a hand through his hair. "So we might have made things worse?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure." Sharon replied, frowning thoughtfully. She really hoped not, she just wanted to help Maria get the courage to actually do something about the crush she has had on Natasha for a ridiculously long time, especially after she spoke to Clint when he came to her about his suspicions that Natasha might like Maria.

"I really hope we haven't" Steve admitted, looking guilty already.

"Me too." Sharon said softly, "me too."


End file.
